


Something earned for free is worthless

by Kodawari



Series: Immortal Heart [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15068147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kodawari/pseuds/Kodawari
Summary: Everyone dies, even the survivors. Thor is left in a strange world, and things are starting to get lonely.Planned series, hopefully.





	Something earned for free is worthless

Rocket was first.

They crossed paths in Wakanda of all places. A charity banquet of Stark's. It wasn't what it could have been, considering he was the host. The mood was more professional, everyone wearing more black than usual, even the usually vibrant Wakandans. The comedian's humor didn't translate, there was classic Stark drama, and when Shuri showed off her latest invention it seemed to be only an improvement on something already made. She did not smile too often, and Stark seemed to reciprocate. Rogers did not show, but Natasha was there, arms crossed most of the time talking with Pepper. Bruce greeted him and said he wanted to talk, but that he had to speak with Stark first, and you know how much of your soul you were selling to him then. 

Nebula skulked somewhere behind Tony, black marble eyes gleaming. Thor did not understand their friendship. He was perplexed Tony had made such a one as her.  


Thor made the excuse he only came because he remembered Wakanda's food was worth using the Bifrost to get to. It did not disappoint. 

There was a time he would have thought it frivolous to utilize it for such a thing, but that was a long time ago, and not long enough. Time seemed too fast now. 

No one ever spoke a word of it. It hung like an invisible sword above them all, so they laughed instead. He saw right through them. Gods tend towards hidden things. It's in their nature.

The raccoon-né-rabbit was alone in a corner looking conspicuous despite his strategic placement. It could have been the suspiciously large bag. Rocket had grayed around the ears, the eyebrows, the muzzle. His once dusky paws were frosted and his brow seemed wearisome and heavy, like an old dog's. Last Thor saw him, he didn't speak as much. But he was more choice now with his words. He barely glanced up at his approach.

Ugly.

Fox. 

Rocket replied with a dismissive fuck-off-you-bastard gesture and chuckled. 

Thor found himself on the floor for the rest of the banquet. 

***

Afterwards, when the food was getting dangerously low—probably his fault— they found themselves outside in the long African grass. It was warm, felt like wearing a blanket outdoors. Wakanda's shield gleamed in an aurora, trying to remind him of home, his real home. He avoided looking at it.

It pained him to watch Rocket move. It was his unnaturally sustained body, propped up like delicate figure, a puppeteer's aging construct, finally collecting its tax. When he tripped he crawled a bit and cursed, angry at the indignity. He had hated it when he discovered his true heritage. Dumbass animals. 

Thor would not insult him with aid. You don't do that to people like Rocket. His heart weighed as much as the gravity that tugged at his friend. 

The two sat in silence for a long while before Rocket broke it. Odin knew he hated awkward silence.

Hey, look at that.

In the corner of his eye, the one the raccoon gave him, Rocket's pointed face aimed upward. He followed its trajectory. The night sky blazed in green and blue, a red flash punctuating it like blood mixing with water. 

It's nice.

Yes, Rabbit, it is. 

***

Thor woke, calm, hazy. He did not sleep and if he did then it was a lie. He felt it in his stomach and did not panic. He just knew. He had known for a while.

It's strange how life robs you of so much when you close your eyes. Rocket lied curled up a few feet from him, a nest of grass framing his small body. Hands and feet clawed up, like he was afraid of something, tail shock-white like dash of powder against his orange jumper, the lips of his mouth pulled down and silent, an old soul scowling at everything, smiling behind the armor. Thor was deceived and angry when a glint of sun caught the narrow sliver of the body's eye. Even gods are fooled. Death took away the essence of a person, and the cold stiff body Thor brought back was just that. Rocket was gone. It's like a mockery. Someone dressing up a hunter's kill.

*** 

Tony was next. 

Tony had planned ahead. It was a scandal, and not for the reasons you would assume.

It was because Tony _chose_ to do it himself. If anyone could cheat death, it would have been him. 

Pepper was there through it all, cordial as always, either by his side or getting up and greeting guests: old friends, press, lawyers, more press. Any other wife would have had a fit. Tony was basking in it, the madman. She still had matriarch's grip on the business end of things and Tony would die knowing she had every base covered. He never trusted anyone like he trusted her. 

Their son Morgan sat dour faced by his father's bed. Dark like Stark, Pepper's freckles. Even when he was young (far younger) he'd shy away from Thor, losing his voice. Thor thought it was an excuse not to speak. The habit never broke even well into his 30s. He couldn't help how others were raised. 

Tony told them to skedaddle, everyone but you, Pointbreak. Don't give me that look. I'm not blind. I cured that. 

Didn't cure me, Thor reminded him, smiled. 

Tony rolled his eyes. His hair was pepper-and-salt gray, his brown eyes upon further inspection had a ring of blue. He was still as handsome as ever, Pepper said, and still as much a smartass. 

Thor was puzzled when he approached the bed. The finest medical equipment he could buy was set up around him like a dragon's hoard, like the treasure of a king. Thor thought surely he would have denied death its due. 

I wouldn't have given you husky dog eyes.

I don't understand, Stark. Out of every human I thought you'd beat this. _And_ make a smart remark about it.

He had hoped after Rocket...

Stark? I'm about to cross the Rainbow Bridge -not yours- and you still call me Stark? Break with the decorum, Sgt. Tropic Thunder, your friend is going to be singing with the heavily choir soon and he's going to teach them Metallica. Thor, geez.

There are lots of Tonys. There's really only one Stark. 

Stark broke eye contact, looked up at the ceiling. Beyond it. He worked his lower lip and for a moment and Thor thought he might cry. He did not, much to their mutual relief. 

Everyone thinks I want to live. They think I'm going to upload my consciousness into some mainframe and Oz the whole thing. Do I want to, after Ultron and Vision? No, no I fucking don't. 

His heart rate went up _beepbeepbeepbeep._ Thor made a calming motion, he was never sure if Stark saw it. The man relaxed. 

You're probably wondering why I told you this. No one else knows. They all think that thing -he gestured at a screen Thor took for face value- is me. Going to be me. It's possible, Shuri figured it out. Damn smart kid. 

He looks at Thor, and it hits him just how fragile he is, this Iron Man. 

I'm tired, Thor. 

He understands in the way only a warrior can.

No matter what Thor's ancestors would have said, he did not die in shame. An honorable death, considering all he went through, all he sacrificed.

Tomorrow Tony Stark would die, and no one will be none the wiser. Thor would break down the gates of Valhalla if they denied him. 

***

Nebula disappeared some time after. No surprise there, she never got along with anyone but him. What did surprise him is the tube of liquid she left behind, Stark's mark on it, and a letter. How she managed to find where he resided amused him. 

***  
Pepper made it two more years. She was strong, he thought, but the heart can't beat without love. 

Barton died in his sleep, his wife at the funeral sobbing with her grown children, but happy it wasn't out there, in some pisspoor country that no one would even flick a cigarette at. 

Natasha was found assassinated, some neurotoxin linked to the KGB. There's international upheaval, it almost got out of hand. Thor and Rogers talked, Rogers looking not a day over 20. It's like the rest of the world curled like a leaf while your childhood friend smiled through it, still fresh with a touch of green.

Bruce couldn't help. He and Hulk weren't on speaking terms, and Bruce was very, very old. 

Thor and Steve were all that was left.

*** 

They found the assassin. Thor knew where, you just concentrate and Stombreaker guides you, locking into the complex web of your mind and finding the occult connections to everything else, Bifrost tearing into space like it's rice paper. A dirt house in Uzbekistan, a town that's only three families. Thor didn't take the man, a skinny roughshod thing with eyes like a mad hawk. He let Steve do the punching, the kicking. He never saw Steve like that before or after, and he's glad for it.

***

It happened on a clear day. It's on the steps of the US consulate in Russia. He and Steve were just talking, two friends overjoyed the crisis is averted, glad it's all over. They've got a secret and they've learned how to lie. Thor has, anyway. Hey man, maybe they can finally try and get drunk together. Good luck with that. 

It hits like a fact. The impact sends Steve back, out Thor's vision for only a moment. A spray of red sawdust mists in the cold, blue air. Steve's got a hole in his head like a third gory eye, bleeding out into the foreign snows. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot, blue confusion his irises. 

The sniper feels pure pain when Bifrost rains down. 

More die. Everyone he knew. Heart attacks, accidents, despair, poverty...He is a useless god.

Hulk is out there. Some mountain range in Alaska. 

Sometimes he finds himself staring into nothing. There's a tidal wave in him that won't breach.

***

He'd stopped counting the years. They're like weeks to him. Sometimes he got an itch, but within those weeks a new threat arose and he found himself bringing Stormbreaker crashing down on a new and doomed head, always in sight of earth. Once the moon was a desolate outpost he could retire too, then Mars, but humanity's appetite for real estate is astounding. Stark was still in business selling rockets. His descendants looked at him as a novelty, great great great, etc's heirloom. 

People forgot who he was. A fixture, as regular as the sun's rise and fall. You could see him in the storms sometimes, a lonely figure silent with regard. 

***

Bruce died, or rather Hulk lived. Driven by the gravity of the familiar, he sought him out. The creature raging and stomping and wanting nothing but himself when he saw the portend lightening. There was pain in him that broke Thor. Bruce was gone, you can't have him, he seemed to say, I feel him too but there's nothing left. I can't go back, there's nothing there. He left a landslide in his wake, his roars echoing in the canyons and long after in Thor's mind.

He did not seek him out again.

***

He sometimes called in a favor, a passing alien, have you seen my people, have they been looking for me. I don't think so, or they would have found you, don't you think? They're hard to kill, they'll be around.

You're immortal. You have time. 

***

He thought maybe Valkyrie, Brunhilde, would find him eventually. He could not bear to leave Midgard too far behind, even during that brief period of madness. A new growing pain. The twin suns of Mars spun so many times that the sky was frozen to him. A group of ravagers found him on the Red Planet, covered like a primordial and primitive god in scarlet dust, half mad from self imposed isolation. The visions, they won't stop, they won't stop, I'll kill all of them. I'll find and kill him! One was Mantis' race --he remembered her all a sudden – he could feel her even in this one. The Guardians, that motley crew, Rocket. He soothed him as much as they could, but he was honest too. Beautiful, strong Valkyrie. She was with us not long ago, she was angry, unstable, she went further than anyone had, to the edge of the universe. There was no Asgard-- Your race. Something happened, a Celestial. We spoke of them in legends, your kind, tough and noble, but we always feared your rouges. When an Asgardian goes bad, they go all the way.

A suicide mission against a Celestial. Her. All of the remnants. He could not fathom. He asked him to make him sleep. Bring me to earth, bring me to my companion's graves. 

He cursed Stormbreaker. Cursed whatever spell forbade him from finding them. 

He cursed himself.

***

Asgard glowed in the night even still, after all those thousands of years. Sentimental dead-light, as cheap as a cuckoo's love. Their little galaxy could wheel on in eternity until the sun devoured it and he'll still be there. What more did he have to lose.

Ragnarok had come to wipe the slate and missed a spot. He is an unintended and unnatural survivor. 

That is what he is now: Survivor. He's earned it by virtue of his nature.

Worthless.

***

There are things Thor always has with him: Stormbreaker, the defunct eye, the strange potion Nebula left, Stark's note.

***

It is raining now outside the cave. These things last mere seconds to him. Little variations in the light and dark of time. He knows much.  
There he sees enemies moving in on the outer ring of the solar system. He will let the humans have a try, only interfere if it goes bad. He does not want them to rely on him. It breeds weakness. There he senses a fault on a cost—a tidal wave in the making. They will not need him for that, they can predict it as good as he. There is much strife as there always has been, but it has changed. Not wars, not in the same way. They're growing up. 

When they were young, he could not rest. He filled every moment from here to there, space becoming meaningless. Stormbreaker began to speak in it's own way to him, here, here, there, there. They were restless. They were lonely. A single parent of over a billion. Then one day they stopped needing him.

Thor does not sleep. He crosses his legs with Stormbreak's span across them, wrists on his knees, looking like an ancient chieftain of a lost time. His beard is longer now, hair too, once braided with mementos that couldn't weather the storms. He looks much like his father once did in his prime. He does not remember how old he is.

 

He cannot sleep, so he listens. Every chance he gets, he listens. He listens deeply as to see the other side. In a hypnogogic state he feels the pull of other universes, other realities. He sees his friends; glass illusions that will crack if he touches them. They've lost their personalities, they are as fascinating as worn stone idols.

Sometimes he listens closer to home. To the resounding thunder of his own heart, to the cry of the raven, the howl of the wolf. The magpie's voice whispers forgotten things.

Out of nowhere, a face from the past. He had not thought of her for ages. It was best he did not think of them at all. But she is there, indelibly more than a conjuring, stronger than glass, vibrant with the warmth of life and suffering with it too. He had not thought—ever. He rouses himself from his rest. The rain stopped long ago, sheets of sun dazzle on the slick rocks. It suits him to start it up again.

Sif lives.


End file.
